Saturday, June 8, 2013

I used to be the one who’s always looking for the ways to make money
online. After years of reading and trying to get things work, I’m
finally able to make money on the Internet from the comfort of my own
home

If you’re the one who still don’t know how to make a single cent
online, I know what you’re thinking right now. Therefore, I’m here to
share with you the step-by-step of what I do to earn money on the
Internet with a simple blog. I've decided that now it’s time to give
back .

I believe that it’s impossible to put the exact step-by-step
blueprint of Internet marketing in this one single blog post, so I’m
going to make it short and (hopefully) understandable.

OK, are you ready?

Here are the steps I do to make money through the Internet with
affiliate marketing (a.k.a promoting other people’s products for
handsome commissions):Step 1Picking a Niche

It is recommended that you are promoting products in the niche that you’re already passionate about.
For example if you love pets, you can choose to be in the cat or dog
niche. Or, if you’re into health and fitness, you can go to that niche.
But you can also jump into a niche that you’re not passionate about,
since that’s in fact what I did when I just got started

If you’re reading this, I know that you are passionate about Internet
marketing, but I suggest that you don’t jump straight away into this
niche as it’s very competitive.

Step 2Researching Keywords
The beauty of Internet marketing is that you can find out what people
want to buy before creating or promoting a product. You can do what
people are looking for by performing a keyword research. To do this, you
should find out the keywords that people are searching by employing the
free but powerful Google Keyword Tool.

You can find out the search volume for long tail keywords, as they
are more specific and people are more likely to buy when searching for
them. For example, “lower blood pressure naturally”, “making money with
Clickbank”, etc. Usually, it is recommended to go for the keywords that
have no less than 2,000 local searches per month (but it’s still up to
you).

Step 3Finding a Good Product
To find a good product to promote, I recommend you start with Clickbank’s marketplace.
You can register first, then start finding a good product. If you find a
product with high gravity, it means that there are a lot of people
promoting that product and earning commissions. If the product has lower
gravity, then it means that there are fewer people promoting and
earning commissions from it.

Personally, I like to find a product that has lower gravity. That’s
also what’s recommended by Kelly Felix, the guy behind the best-selling
“The Rich Jerk” and who together with Mike Long created Bring The Fresh, a guide to making money online which I think the best I've found.Step 4Creating a Blog + Pre-Sell Content

This is actually simple. You don’t have to be a techie nor a great writer.

After you know what to sell and what keyword you are going to target, you can buy a domain and hosting and then create a wordpress blog.
The domain name you create should contain the keyword you are targeting
to make it easier for you to rank on the first page of Google. After
that, you can write (or ask others to write for you) several articles on
your blog.

Please note that you should provide helpful articles, don’t just write low-quality articles that will waste your visitors’ time.

Again, I’m not good at explaining how to build a money making blog or website in this short blog post. If you want to know the example of a money-making blog, then go straight to Bring The Fresh since Kelly is going to show you exactly how he build a profitable blog from scratch. Or, you can download my free report in the sidebar of this blog.

But if you don’t want to waste your time, you can just watch this video below and see a real example of the kind of blog I’m talking about:

Step 5Get Your Blog to the First Page of Google

Do backlinking so that you can be on the first page of Google so more
people will notice your blog. One of the ways I do this is by writing
informative and valuable articles + article resource box, submitting
them to article directories, and backlinking.

This won’t happen overnight, so you need time.

Step 6Making sales, building your business, and getting your first check (and the 2nd, 3rd, and so on)

So, basically those are the steps I do to make money online. If you
really want a comprehensive and clear-cut guide on earning money on the
Internet, I confidently recommend you join Bring The Fresh (BTF) I mentioned before. I’ve joined it, and I think that it’s the best money making guide online.

But I should warn you that BTF
is not about getting rich quick, and it’s not about some weird software
that will make money just by clicking a button. It’s about the
step-by-step blueprint in building your own money making websites.

If you still have questions regarding your effort, Kelly and Mike
will even provide you with their cell phone numbers! (don’t abuse it
though, since your number is going to be blocked if you do that).

If you read my previous article,
you probably know that I joined a local SEO contest. It was held by
Rakuten Indonesia in October 2012, and ended in January 2013.

The result?

I miraculously became the first winner of the contest.

When I say it was miraculous, I mean it.

So here’s the story…

One day I just browsed the net for an SEO contest, and found out that
Rakuten in Indonesia was holding one. I never won an SEO contest
before, so I decided to register as a contestant and aimed to be the
champion. I guess I was one of the first contestants to register, so I
started backlinking earlier than others.

But from the start, I already aimed to be the first winner. Not the second, the third, etc.

By the way, in my country SEO contests are quite common, but I chose
that particular contest because I personally like online shopping :-)

Anyways, after registering, what I did was just write an article
about the company, and I didn’t think so much about the keywords at
first. I just tried to focus on writing a good and readable article that
could really help my readers when choosing trusted online shops.

So after the article was done, then I sprinkled the keywords and started backlinking.

Months passed by, and I was desperate because I kept checking my
position on Google.co.id, and mine was not in the top 10. I tried to
change my blog’s geo-target through Google Analytics and add some codes
to show Google that my blog was in Bahasa, not English.

Since my article was still not on page one yet, I tried to keep getting backlinks from local websites.

Until I finally let go (I’m a fan of the Law of Attraction, and letting go of attachment, not being obsessed, is important… :-) ).

The deadline was near, and my article was nowhere on page one.

But I still had some hope, maybe suddenly my article would climb or maybe I would get the prize for the best article…lol

So when it was time for the announcement of the contest winners, I was surprised….

I was the first prize winner!

I got an e-mail saying “Congratulations! You are the winner of Rakuten.co.id SEO Contest” (in Bahasa)

click to enlarge

It turned out that the winners were not determined by the articles’ position on Google.co.id, but on Google.com instead.

I knew I was number one on Google.com most of the time, but I never
thought that they would use the .com, instead of .co.id. Now that was a miracle for me, since all I know is that the winners of 99.99% of all SEO contests in my country are usually determined based on their positions on Google.co.id, not Google.com.
That contest was an exception, I guess, and I was very lucky…

I was actually nervous if they would actually change
their minds, and kicked me out from the winners list if they knew I was
not number one on Google Indonesia…but it didn’t happen….lol

I got 5,000,000 Rakuten Super Points, or about $500. Not bad.

But I learned some useful things during the contest, and one of them
was to buy an aged domain with PR which I never did before. Kelly Felix
in Bring the Fresh
Full Disclosure recently just uploaded a video of buying old aged
domains with PR to build a private network, so maybe I’m going to do
that too.

So I guess the lessons learned here are to never give up (keep
building backlinks, writing articles, etc), never lose hope (I still had
the hope to be the first winner, even though deadline was close), and life is full of miracles. Anything can happen.

Friday, June 7, 2013

So I’ve been getting my Clickbank commissions through wire transfer
for some time, until I found out that Payoneer now allows us to open a U.S. virtual bank account to receive payments.

Well, this was good news for me, as Clickbank doesn’t allow direct
deposit for my country. With wire transfer Clickbank cuts $35 for each
wire, but direct deposit is cheaper as it has no fee, except for the 1%
loading fee from Payoneer.

Therefore if your commission is $1,000, with wire transfer CB will
cut $35 so you’ll get $965. But with direct deposit using U.S. Payment
Service, Payoneer will only take 1% * $1,000 = $10 so you’ll get $990.
But of course this case would be different if you earn $3,500 and above

Without further ado, I applied for a free Payoneer debit MasterCard,
and it finally arrived safely at my doorstep about a few weeks ago. I
then activated my card, then applied for a U.S. virtual bank account
(U.S. Payment Service).

They will send you an invitation to register for a U.S. Payment Service once you have activated your card.
When my application was approved and active, I then changed my
payment method in my CB account into direct deposit. Payoneer gave me a
bank routing number and account number for this.

My first direct deposit was this morning, and it worked perfectly. Here’s the screenshot:

I’m quite happy today :-)

So if you don’t have a U.S. bank account, and you’re living outside
of the U.S (Indonesia, Pakistan, Philippines, India, Bangladesh,
Singapore, etc…) like me then Payoneer’s U.S. Payment Service can be the
perfect option.

But before you get your free debit card, maybe you should carefully consider their fees:

1. Annual card account maintenance: $29.95 (no activation fee anymore, but there’s only a flat annual fee)
2. 1% of each payment you receive (for any amount you get)
3. $3.15 per ATM withdrawal (When a transaction is
made as a foreign transaction or is requested in a currency other than
USD, charges of up to 3% may be assessed above all charges assessed by
MasterCard for the transaction.)

Payoneer used to charge $20 annually for a U.S.Payment Service and some monthly card maintenance fees, but now not anymore. So there’s nothing to worry about.

I guess the fees are worth it.

I can now receive payments faster, withdraw my money from any ATM with MasterCard log, and shop online with the debit card. Credit card sucks….lol.

You can also use it to verify your PayPal account, once you’ve loaded the card. If it has zero balance, PayPal will decline your card.
Oh, if you want some free money, you can sign up here. Once you’ve loaded your card with at least $100,

If so, you should have known that one of the “gurus” that inspired me was Chris Farrell.

So at that time, I watched some free videos from Chris and Mike
Filsame and got inspired so much. The videos were part of their product
launch promotion, called Affiliate Dot Com. Even though I did not join,
but I learned a lot from the free videos.

Later I googled Chris, and found his Chris Farrell Membership website (you can get his special $1 trial offer).
I watched his free videos called “I Love Traffic, You Love Traffic”,
and even though I did not think the information was special, the videos
were really pleasant to watch and listen to because Chris sounded really
warm and friendly.

You see, there are a lot of people out there who are successful in
making money online, but not all of them can teach what they know well. I
think Chris is really different, as in my opinion he really knows his
stuff and is a great teacher :-)

So after the Affiliate Dot Com videos, I continued on my own. Then I stumbled upon Google Sniper and Bring The Fresh which I think both are great.

I totally forgot about Chris Farrell.

Then one day I stumbled upon a video on YouTube and the uploader
mentioned about Chris Farrell Membership. I was curious about how the
website looked since I visited there 3 years ago.

Turned out that the website looked better.

When I arrived there, Chris (and his dog, Mr. Stevens) already
welcomed me using his awesome English accent. After that welcome video, I
just could not go away from the site.

I filled in my name and e-mail address, watched his free video training, got the $1 sign up trial, and now I’m a member.

Here’s what I think about the membership:

Chris Farrell Membership (CFM) is basically designed for newbies
in making money online. Since I already learned from Bring The Fresh, I
actually skipped many video trainings in CFM member’s area.

In fact, some videos that I watched were only the “How To Communicate
Like A Rock Star and Make More Sales” webinar by Chris Farrell and
Kevin Rogers (veteran copywriter, very funny guy) and “Permission to
Commission” by Ian Bass.

But what I can see is that the videos are really clear, he even uses some cartoons, and the lessons are really well-organized.

Plus, Chris is not trying to sell you other products with his own
affiliate links. This is one of the things I like about CFM. Once you
join, he will help you stay focus on completing the course.

Honestly, this is so different from Bring The Fresh. What I don’t
like about it is that Mike and Kelly will promote various products in
the member’s area. In addition to the necessary tools (keyword research
software, Unique Article Wizard, Magic Submitter, etc), they also
promote other courses, such as OMG Machines (One Man Gang Machines) by
the most successful BTF student, Greg Morrisson.

I think there’s nothing wrong in promoting other products, but honestly this distracts me from implementing what is inside BTF (update 2013: Mike finally decided to focus on OMG, and BTF is now Kelly's).

The additional products will actually be useful if you want to go to the next level, but the way they promote them is kind of annoying, in my opinion.

Every time Mike and Kelly e-mail me some free webbies (webinars) only
to promote other products, sometimes I just watch them just to get
inspired without buying them at all.

Ok, let’s go back to CFM.

So what I like about CFM is that it is very well-organized, so I
believe if you are still new and haven’t made a dime online, this
membership will be of great help. This membership is even designed for
those who are still learning using their computer. There is an optional video about basic skills like copy pasting, downloading, etc, which you can always skip if you already know how to do them.

My recommendation is that if you are totally new to making money online or how to create a simple webpage, Chris Farrell Membership is for you.

But if you already know about SEO, article spinning, backlinking, etc, then probably Bring The Fresh will better suit you.

If you already know about building a squeeze page and e-mail marketing, the $37/month cost for CFM will not be necessary,
because mainly it is used to keep getting discounted hosting and
autoresponder (aweber) per month in addition to get more updates such as
webinars.

So CFM may be a good membership site if you want to save some cash on hosting and autoresponder costs.

In a lot of online discussion forums, including Bring The Fresh’
member’s forum, people often only care and focus on making money. Many
believe that creating a blog on topics that they love and do what they
want, money will eventually come.

But here’s the fact:

Money will come if you solve a problem.

If you do what you love, but you don’t solve anyone else’s problem, you’re not going to make money.

So if you’re still not making any real money on the Internet, maybe
you’re not solving enough problems so that you’re not helping enough
people.i

As what Zig Ziglar said,

You can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.

If you have a blog on a certain niche that you really enjoy writing
about, but you’re not earning a single dollar, maybe it’s time to move
on to another project that can really solve others’ problems.

I remember that in a Bring The Fresh
video Kelly Felix said that he’s upset that one of his blogs got
slapped by Google (de-indexed, gone from the search engine…), yet it’s
not because of how much money he used to make with that site.

It’s about how thousands of people got helped to get out of miserable
situation by his site (it was credit-related blog, by the way).

So the lesson here is that if you’re loving your blog and what you’re
doing, but it doesn’t earn you the money you want, it’s time to move
forward and figure out a way how you can really solve your site
visitors’ problems.

Regarding this issue, if our site doesn’t make money or got slapped
by Google, Kelly recommends that we should keep on moving forward and
diversifying.

Yes, he lost one blog that made him around $900/month, but then
another blog of his was able to earn him $12,000 after making zero
dollar for months. That site wasn’t able to solve people’s problem at
first, then after he made some tweaks, conversion increased and more
people got helped by it.

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

I used to have a thought that it’s too late to get into Internet marketing.

When I was just starting out and didn’t make money, I was thinking of giving up.

I thought that I should have started earlier, like in early 2000′s (but I was still in junior high that time…lol) like what Kelly Felix did. Especially when it used to be much easier to rank your site on Google.

However, I just read a post by Hiroshi Mikitani, the CEO of Rakuten Ichiba (Japan’s Amazon, by the way) that common sense is just a myth, at least in business.

He was told that starting an e-commerce business was useless and that
it was too late for him as people were not interested in the concept of
“online mall” anymore.

Indonesia is holding an SEO contest at the time of this
writing. They launched their business last year, in June 2011, in
partnership with Indonesia’s and Southeast Asia’s largest and most
integrated media group, MNC (Media Nusantara Citra).

The contest is one of their strategies to gain more customers in the
country, in addition to investing $100 million in Pinterest.

Mikitani is now even planning to beat Amazon.

But again, an article on Forbes said it’s a “mission impossible”, but only time will tell.
Oh, and did you know that the commissioner of the U.S Patent Office in 1899 once said that “…Everything that can be invented has been invented”?

Well, look at what’s happening now. The number of patent applications
filed with the U.S. Patent Office has been increasing each year.

And you must have heard about the famous Chicken Soup for the Soul, right?

Jack Canfield and Mark V. Hansen was rejected by more than 100 publishers because their common sense told them that nobody would buy a collection of short stories in a book with a ridiculous title.

But now look what’s happening. There are now more than 200 titles of the Chicken Soup series available.
If your “common sense” says it’s too late or it’s impossible to make money online, think again.
As what Mikitani wrote, what’s important is to “progress forward while constantly adapting to new situations.”

When it comes to SEO to make money on the Internet, algorithm updates will always come and your sites may tank. What’s important is to keep adapting and moving forward.